


Train Run, Train Fast

by bellygunnr



Category: Rockman ZX | Mega Man ZX, Rockman | Mega Man - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Greye is just a kid, Humor, Rewrit Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-23 19:00:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20247742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellygunnr/pseuds/bellygunnr
Summary: Another angle at ZX Advent.





	Train Run, Train Fast

The two bounty hunters were a pair-- brothers, as far as human customs go; built together, activated together, they had never been separated before. It was only fitting that as they broke into this massive facility, they'd die together, too. Such were the tapestries. They only saw the possible riches this defunct factory could net them. They did not see the warning signs as the final lock in place lit up green and the doors slid down, down, down, permitting them access into their final resting place.

The room itself-- a laboratory of sorts-- was completely metal, unrusted but untouched. Pods lined the walls, most of them empty. The ones that were full contained a bright, glowing fluid, yet as the two brothers walked among them, they only saw skeletons inside.

Half-projects. Abandoned ideas.

“Look at this one,” a brother suddenly said. His name was Bruce. “It looks like a kid.”

“Human, do you think?” said the other, and his name is Miles. “Doesn’t look very human…”

“No, it has the triangle. A reploid kid…”

“Who makes a kid nowadays? Pretty sure that’s illegal, isn’t it?” Miles said with a frown. He taps the edge of the glass.

The kid inside does nothing. Completely inert.

“Must be why the facility’s abandoned. Man, we’re not getting anything out of here, are we?”

“Could save the kid, I mean--”

“Kids aren’t money, and that’s gonna raise a lot of questions. I doubt camp would be thrilled if we brought home a reploid kid. They’d send him to scrap!”

Silence falls between them. It’s true, but you didn’t need to say it out loud.

“Maybe we should just go,” Bruce says soberly. “I don’t…”

Just then, the building shakes. The wall across from them cracks. A single red eye can be seen through the shattered steel and brick before it all falls away.

“Mavericks? Here?”

“No, those aren’t ordinary Mavs. We must have tripped an alarm-- we have to run!”

Yet as they charged for the door they came out of, more mavericks appeared, their eyes crimson and indifferent. Guns whined and lit up the dark space. Their shots were too close to go astray-- Miles and Bruce, brothers and buildmates, were obliterated to shattered broken hulls within seconds of being discovered.

And the pod they had found began to leak.

Its glass cracked.

Others cracked with it-- a couple shattered. The steel floor became slick fast, covered rapidly with water or whatever protective fluid was in the pods. The mavericks stormed it indifferently.

“Look what you’ve done-- you’ve gone and broke the whole place,” a voice complained. A tall figure floated themselves down into the broken lab. “We were supposed to keep it intact… Jeez.”

“Don’t be so hard on them, Prometheus,” a second voice said. Their voice was slightly higher, smoother-- lilting. “Oh? That must be our target. Grey.”

The one called Prometheus settled themselves onto the ground and approached said target, still dripping from his time inside the pod. A shiver shoots down his spine at the look he is given.

“Pandora? We may have some issues. How troublesome!”

“I can feel it too…”

  
Grey. Grey is the only thing he could remember, even as he recounts his tale to Butch, the camp medical chief. He tells him about where he had woken up at, the strange… Reploids… he had met, and what they had called him.

“Grey,” he says flatly. “Greye,” he repeats, this time with inflection.

“Grey...e?” Butch replies.

“You get it,” Greye says, and he seems happy.

“Well, Greye… You’re welcome to stay here. You’ve had quite the journey for your first day.”

Butch leaves the sentence hanging. First day as a hunter, a kid, alive, of all things. That must be why there’s something off about him, he thinks to himself. Still getting adjusted to everything.

Greye smiles. “Thanks! Uh… I feel like there’s something I’m forgetting…”   
“Could it be the gun in your hand? Maybe holster that?” Butch says immediately.

A beat of silence.

“...Shit, probably. It’s out of ammo anyway.”

And he drops it on the floor.

Butch groans.

  
The camp gives Greye a few days to learn the area and meet everyone before asking if he’d like to work. Most folks, they say, are licensed by the Legion to perform special duties and missions. They’re offering the same benefits to Greye.

He naturally accepts the offer.

And starts that day.

“Help escort this package to the Legion itself, at the center of the city. It leaves from the train this evening so don’t be late!”

Greye frowns at this. That was awfully soon-- and awfully chipper.

“What’s in the package?”

“It’s a tool called a Biometal,” and the line goes dead.

Well then.

From there, Greye meets several other people-- even another reploid kid, though they’re younger than himself. This makes him frown, but he resolves not to mention it. They could be illegal builds together! Right?

Right.

“Once I get back, kid, we can play some games or something. I’ve got some sick tricks.”

Just then, the kid’s caretaker came back, scooping her high into the air and setting her on his massive shoulders. He smiled down at Greye with kind eyes and a rumbling laugh.  
“You’re the new friend, right? Grey, was it?”

“No… It’s Greye!” Greye corrected, puffing.

“Ah, forgive me. Don’t you have somewhere to be?”

Greye scowled and ran off-- he was going to be late for that train mission! What a pain.

+

“...This is the worst train ride ever. What the hell.”

Greye had been tasked with protecting the secret package as it made its commute between one mysterious pair of hands to another. That sounded simple enough by itself, but the folks had loaded him on an open-faced trailer, the wind howling and lashing at him. He clung to the box-- the only strapped down thing-- desperately.

“They’re trying to kill me,” he mutters. “What the hell…”

Each bump and shudder the train took shot up Greye’s spine. He grits his teeth against the unrelenting vibrations, fingers digging into the metal crate, threatening to dent it.

_Let up on the box before you hurt yourself!_

“Wh-- what was that?”

Oh, dear....

Oh, this was awful. First he was put on some kind of death trial mission and now he’s hearing voices! As if he didn’t have enough to deal with already!

_My name is A. You’re not supposed to hear me!_

The box shook violently.

Light burst from within it.

Greye, in a fit of self-preservation, tries to flee to the other end of the cart before he catches a face full of shrapnel. As the box breaks, nothing goes flying-- it peels back as if shorn. A single item floats up from inside.

_Wow! It’s bright out here!_

“Whhh- hey, A? You said you’re name was A? What the _fuck_ was that?”

  
_We don’t have time for that! Also, watch your mouth._

“What do you mean we don’t have time?” Greye demands, bristling. Then he hears it.

A Maverick drone dives down onto the open-faced cart, its bomb load thankfully released earlier, now armed with simple claws and a small blaster. Greye screams as he dives out of the way-- and screams again as A, whatever it is, dives onto him instead.

_Just trust me! Megamerge with me!_

Light flares again.

Biometal and Reploid merge.

+

Greye has little time to become accustomed to his new body as more Mavericks begin to swarm the train. He’s equipped now with not one but two pistols, and he wields both furiously, flinching back as debris falls apart around him. A urges him to climb onto the next train car.

What else can he do but listen?

_I don’t really know what’s happening, but staying alive sounds pretty okay!_

“A- Agreed,” Greye hisses, boots slipping as he hops onto the covered car. He crawls across it until finding the hatch that leads inside it, hastily dropping down.

It looks clearer here.

“Does this mean the train is under attack?” Greye asks out loud.

_I guess it does! We should keep going before something bad catches up with us!_

“Or we catch up to something bad… What are you, anyway?”

The two of them begin to pass through train cars, Greye fumbling around each time they met an enemy. Only with A’s sharp coaching and brittle humor did he figure out the trigger from the barrel-- these pistols were much different than the one he had handled before.

_I’m a Biometal. My name is A. And I don’t know much else!_

Now, the car they were inside looked fairly important, filled with gadgets and shining lights that Greye couldn’t hope to understand. As he begins to walk toward the front end, the roof suddenly peels back, and a massive machine drops down.

Flame jets out from the horns on its head.

“What the fuck?”

_That doesn’t look very friendly...._

  
With a wild scream, the new machine lunges at Greye, spitting words in a broken, slanted English.

“Defects must be destroyed or captured! Master wills it!”

Greye yelps, scrambling out of the way of the mad charge.

“D- defects? I’m not the crazy one here, buckaroo!”

The big machine stops and turns, arms crossing together. Three flaming bolts are fed to life-- and Greye cannot escape. He feels his armor and skin char from the centermost arrow.

_That hurt! Who does this guy think he is?!_

_Greye, pull the hammers on our pistols. That should shut this guy up!_

Through the pain and stinging, Greye almost doesn’t hear what Model A says. His hands shake as he tries to move his thumbs from the grip to the hammers, flicking back on each. Nothing happens for a long, silent moment.

“Master wills that you must be captured for the Great Game!”

Another series of bolts are charged.

Greye lurches forward, his energy tanks suddenly empty.

The world is plunged into a deep, whirling violet, and all that Greye and A thought they knew goes very dark. Beyond them, the violet dimension they summoned seizes upon the violent deer, ripping his armour to shreds. Flame spits out wildly and unchecked from the destroyed horns upon his head. Each breath leaks fuel and smoke from his chest cavity.

A is the first to wake up when the violet world is gone.

Buckfire is still very much at large.

_Hhhey, big guy! Can you hear me?_

Thankfully, broken as he is, the machine snorts smoke and looks around for the voice.

_Good… This kid is pretty out of it, so let’s have a little chat. Who are you? What’s going on?_

“My name is…. Buckfire. Pseudoroid in service of the Master. Must destroy or capture the defect.”

_Pseudoroid, huh… Well, nice to meet you. We’re not the defects you’re looking for!_

Greye’s eyes pop open.

Buckfire is screaming, charging at him from where he’s lying prone on the floor. Greye screams back.

They’re both screaming.

A shouts for Greye to just start shooting, aim for the chest, do you see that core-- wow, that’s a big core--!

He shoots at the core with both pistols. The rapid barrage quickly razes what little is left of Buckfire’s chest cavity. The big beast halts--

_Run, Greye! Run!_

Greye has nowhere to run, so he jumps, clawing his way out of a puncture in the ceiling. He jumps again onto the next cart, then the next, body thrumming wildly and clinging to the very last vestiges of energy and strength. A has latched on much more tightly.

Staying alive is a team effort.

The backend of the train explodes behind him.

And neither of them expects what happens next.

_Standing guard in front of a huge castle, head inclining to the arrival of another of your kind-- the twins, Argoyle and Ugoyle. They give you high fives to the best of each of your abilities, laughing between themselves. They’re admitted to the Master’s chambers shortly thereafter._

_Even though your gaze is straight ahead, you can’t help but peek at what the twins bring out with them a few hours later. A huge pod, supported on wheels, pushed along by both on their motorized peds._

_You’re transported elsewhere. All you see is dancing green light awash in water. A single silhouette of a hand fills your vision._

_“Dear son, when all is said and done, you shall be the King.”_

  
Greye comes up gasping. His energy tanks are even lower than before and his head is pounding.

“A? What was that?”

_I don’t know… I really don’t know!_

Greye never makes it to the Legion that day. Instead, he scurries home as soon as he finds the means to, practically running on fumes. Butch saves him from having to send his mission report in, insisting that he sleeps and recharges, promising to run him through the repairs.

He doesn’t ask about the floating rock.

Greye is good with that. He’ll tell him more the next day.


End file.
